Evidence suggests that life on Earth emerged prior to 3.7 billion years ago.
Notes on verification
Well supported by peer-reviewed studies (Nature 1996, Nutman et al. 2016) and corroborated by NASA, UNSW, University of Wollongong, and Smithsonian. Some scientific debate exists over specific fossil interpretations (Allwood et al. 2018), but the broader claim aligns with mainstream consensus on early life timing. [tier=gold indep_score=0.94 clusters=5 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- History of life (wikipedia)
- https://www.nature.com/articles/384055a0 (corroboration)
- https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2016/life-thrived-on-young-earth-scientists-discover-37-billion-year-old-fossils.php (corroboration)
- https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2016/09/australian-researchers-discover-oldest-evidence-of-life-on-earth (corroboration)
- https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/oldest-evidence-for-early-life-on-earth-dated-to-at-least-377-billion-years/ (corroboration)
- https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/life-science/early-life-earth-animal-origins (corroboration)